Blog Post #8

Storytelling plays a crucial role to the style and reason behind Danticat's work. The author uses storytelling in many different ways throughout her pieces. She makes it an integral part of her character's lives, as well as a way to identify the meaning or reasoning behind certain settings and problems. It is interesting how Danticat has her characters telling stories, at the same time that she is telling her own. Each of her pieces in Krik? Krak! represent stories that included character's who make storytelling play a meaningful role in their lives.

Danticat has a close affiliation with stories, and why they are told. She was able to include this part of her life into her writing. Each character has different reasoning and meaning behind what they believe in, and how things become possible throughout their lives. Storytelling is important because it shows a certain amount of faith in her characters, as well as how they cope with their lives. There is a lot of storytelling and speculations associated with dreams. Danticat's characters speak of dreaming quite often, whether they mean the thoughts in their sleep, or the aspirations they have for the future.

The title makes way for readers to piece together the overall theme of dreams and stories. I did not consider the title in depth until I had finished the last story in Danticat's Krik? Krak!. This is not because I did not understand the meaning behind the title, but I could not see the idea that the author related her own personal storytelling experiences, to those of her characters. In the end, it was clear to me that all of the pieces in Krik? Krak! as well as all the stories told throughout them, represent the title completely in a very personal way to the author.

Two stories that represent the idea of storytelling throughout the book are "Night Women" and "Nineteen Thirty-Seven". Night women represents the dream aspect of storytelling. A mother tells whimsical stories to her child at night to distract him from her job as a prostitute, as well as cope with herself as a person. She tells her son stories, and tries to act like she could live in them one day herself. "Nineteen Thirty-Seven" represents characters who live and believe in their stories. A girl is fighting with the idea that her mother has wings and can fly. There are many stories told to the girl about what her mother can do, as well as what her friends are capable of as well. The girl does not want to believe in what is being told to her until she realizes that the stories are a metaphor for her mother and friends fighting for their lives.

In the epilogue, Danticat goes in depth of how her family did not want her to write for a living. They believed it was dangerous, but Danticat saw the beauty in storytelling everyday. She uses the example of the stories she was told while her hair was being braided, and how stories are just like braids. She explains that the people in her family were storytellers, but Danticat wanted to tell her stories to more than just her loved ones. There is great beauty in Krik? Krak! since readers can see that Danticat has come such a long way to speak bold truths through her characters, and integrate storytelling into the meaning of her pieces.